Examples of Affinity
by Iseki
Summary: Their romance could be summed up in five simple moments AngelaxChase


_A/N: I like Chase. I don't find him an especially cruel or difficult guy. Maybe because I enjoy straightforward sarcasm myself. So, here is a short and simple fic about Chase and falling in love. There is very little drama, no prior engagements, and it's quite fluffy, because I wanted Chase's softer side to be represented. Angela was a tougher character to nail, I'm not sure how many might think she's out of character or not. Depends how you play I suppose. For the purposes of this fic she is quick-witted and confident; I think most female Harvest Moon characters need in order to pass out blue feathers._

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**The First Instance He showed up on Her doorstep**

Summer was hot. Autumn was cloudy. Winter was dull and quiet and lonely.

For Angela, the arrival of spring was more a revival than ever. She felt like she came back to herself, like the cold autumn nights put her into hibernation and she wandered about the barest minimum of tasks and responsibilities through the winter. She hated her clothes, she hated her hair, food had no flavour, and one particularly irritable day she even had a run in with her oldest heifer for not going about the routine correctly. It goes: greet, groom, milk, then feed, and how dare she forget?

She had slept so much for so long that the sun felt foreign on the back of her eyelids; the grass sprouting between her toes was so alien. Feeling the strength of her hoe weighing between her hands was almost too heavy.

It was during this very strange reawakening that it began. So absorbed was she in staring at her hoe, hefting it once, twice, that he managed to stroll right up next to her and peer over her shoulder. It was no surprise that she jumped and dropped said tool really. He filled the field with his soft childlike laughter.

"What were you doing?" a stray wisp of hair fluttered across his eyes.

"Would you believe I was calculating my tool's aerodynamics in reference to today's atmospheric pressure?" she gathered her hoe back, set the head in the ground to lean on and licked her index finger to hold in the breeze affectedly.

As one finely attuned to sarcasm, his dazzling eyes were as flat as his tone, "No. I would not believe that." The hand that was not occupied holding a nondescript brown paper bag found his waist and rested there as he totted up her fields with a gaze.

"It looks awful out here. Worse than last year." She stared at him with piqued fascination; he had only shown up in autumn the year before. According to recent discovery: not her best season. She cleared her throat and gestured again to the hoe.

"My thoughts exactly, O tactful one. That'd be why my presence here is so required." She bounced as she turned toward him, getting on tiptoes to try and peer into his mysterious bag that she noticed un-mysteriously had the green of a leek poking out the top. "Have you brought me a present, Chase? You shouldn't have, you're making me blush."

While she hopped from toe to toe still trying to feign interest in his groceries, his hand tightened on the bag and he turned his back to her, the brightness in his cheeks caught just in time. "Yes actually." The spring breeze fought against his hair clips to tousle him. "I've bought too much and you've been looking extra bony lately." He looked back over his shoulder with eyes half-lidded and scrutinizing. Shyness all but forgotten. "It's unsightly."

Thankfully for him, she was armed but a perceptive judge of character. "My hero!" At that he quickly came around and gave her one of his most practiced and charming smiles- the kind that melted butter and hearts. He was shuffling through the bag trying to find the most appropriate ingredient and she surreptitiously led him towards her home. When he finally retrieved the carton of eggs from the bottom of the bag he was offering it to the open door of her shanty house; a vision of straw bed, rickety table, and Angela smiling sweetly.

He straightened slowly with a shapely eyebrow curved, and she laughed delicately, "Well... I haven't ever really cooked for myself properly before so I was hoping you'd give me a beginner's lesson?"

The wrongness was too much to ignore. He trudged past her and was instantly upon her miniscule kitchen, profanities spat against its bare and dust-grimy surfaces. He stopped suddenly turning back to Angela who was closing the front door far too gingerly, as if to trap him.

"You're lucky." She bowed hoping to supplicate his ego. "Your kitchen is criminal, but it's my day off." He dropped his bag on the countertop and began to empty its contents beside it. Another pause, another scrutinizing look at her. "If your hip bones poke out of that outfit anymore it might actually fall off." She tried to hide the pleased smile that he think of her hips at all behind her fingers and obviously failed. Chase had found her extra rags and threw one at her head, ordering a clean-up before he even so much as taught her to boil water.

Spring was definitely her favourite season.

**The Second Instance She showed up on His doorstep**

With a handful of flowers, so that he promptly grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside where no one could see and grumbled as he tucked them into a drinking glass and was shaking his head. A bachelor has very little use for a vase.

"Actually those were for Mira."

"..."

"We were going to leave them on her husband's grave."

"..."

"Chase, do you have a fever?" She edged closer, her eyes sparkling mischievously. "Quick, your vitamin C levels must be horrendously low." She pulled a jar of marmalade from what he can only presume was the air itself, because that pocket of hers that she always kept around her alluring waist was no where near adequate to hide its bulge.

He took it in his hands, noting the fresh seal and residual warmth that was still held within the glass. She must have come directly here after making it.

"But the flowers were actually for you too, I just couldn't resist."

He glared at her, "Isn't the man meant to give the girl flowers?"

She smiled back unruffled, "Isn't the woman supposed to cook for the man?"

He clicked his tongue, "All the best chefs are men."

She was already manoeuvring around him to sit at his table, "I think you're going to have to prove that one. I'm getting very adept at boiling things." Her small graceful fingers were smoothing the creases in his tablecloth, flicking a crumb away. He found it hard to believe that with such tiny hands she managed to work so much life back into the barren earth of the island. At least she wasn't so bony anymore.

"So this is really payment for dinner?" he rolled the jar in his hand before setting it beside her on the tabletop. He leaned in to check her reaction: would it be guilty? Embarrassed? Self-possessed? Somehow he felt his heart anchor on it.

"Sheesh, Chase, it's only a gift. I thought you liked feeding me up." But there it was. A blush she tried to hide beneath her hair as she tilted her head placidly. It was like his heart betrayed him, suddenly fluttering madly and sinking all the same. Excitement. Longing. Anxiety.

He hurried to the well-memorized safety of his marble countertops and tidy appliances and opened the fridge. The cool blast of it immediately soothing his senses. "I like feeding anyone. If my cooking can make someone happy, I'm happy."

She completely side-stepped the allusion that she was nobody special and answered, "That's good then! Eating your food makes me very happy." His hand slipped on the eggs he had pulled out and they cracked on the tiles.

**The Third Instance in which They met in the dark**

Angela was fishing in the lake. The night was so thick that the lake water looked like black ink, only the faint light of the street lamps allowed her to see her hand in front of her face. Across the spot the orange cat was watching expectantly from under Ben's tree. Occasionally with a flick of its tail, her eyes would flash in the darkness.

It was deathly quiet. It was probably past midnight. Actually, she was starting to feel a little spooked. That quick little splash of movement from a fish just now didn't help. She spun to her right and then to her left, thinking that perhaps she gave the island too much credit as a safe-haven and that she'd best reel in and head home, but when she tried the water pulled back at her just as strongly. Stronger, in fact, her arms began to tire and the lake seemed to rise up to swallow her. Her eyes were wide and terrified as something snaked about her waist but instead of the cold wet coffin of reed and freshwater she was rudely thrown backwards against the bank.

She lost her breath. Surely she was dead now.

"What the hell were you doing? Planning a swim at this time of night?"

She blinked her screwed eyes open and her vision was full of Chase. Chase, who smelled of deep-fat-fryer and dish soap, and more pleasantly vanilla, towering over her with knuckles tense and beautiful visage furious and pale. Or was that just the street lamps making him look so horror-struck?

"You...saved me?" Her backside hurt where she'd landed the hardest, and she had loose grass clippings caught in her hair.

He made some noisy derisive sound, "Sure, from yourself."

Her hand was still gripping her fishing rod. At the end of it a rather large and sad-eyed carp flapped once in consensus. Chase continued to rail at her, hands expressive, "You idiot girl, what would have happened if I hadn't come along. A minute longer at the inn and I would have been fishing your corpse out in the morning! I don't think Toby would approve. He's always tucked in early, isn't a decent lady meant to be in bed at this time?"

"You sound like you're madder at yourself than at me."

"No, I'm mad at you." He grit his teeth.

"I think you've broken my coccyx."

"Idiot's can't complain." Once she'd regulated her breathing she rose despite the previous accusation and began brushing herself clean. To her surprise, and she yelped faintly, he also began to brush the mess from her hair. His fingers threaded at last through the lock against her cheek, knuckles brushing the skin there.

"Come to my place, I'll make you a warm drink."

"but it's summer." He smiled that melting smile, but it was fuller, more natural. "I don't like coffee. I think I hear my phone ringing. A decent lady should be in bed now..." Her excuses were ineffectual since she was smiling back and blushing weakly as he led and she followed like a puppy.

**The Fourth Instance in which They woke up midday...**

And the sunlight hitting his eyes was unbearable. He tried to slip away from it and further under the covers but was hindered by a hand knotted in the front of his wrinkled work shirt. This more than the sunshine and a developing crick in his neck made him truly come awake. He was sat on his living room floor with his back against the settee and his hair sticking in multiple directions. His guest, Angela, had spread across the sofa with one arm around him and the other still wrapped around an empty mug from last night. Her socked feet pointed perfectly to the ceiling and her lips were parted softly in unperturbed slumber.

His chest tightened once again with the gentle pain that felt like he was losing something secret and important. He was fast becoming familiar with the feeling. It was often concurrent with moments like this. But once her eyelashes fluttered back and she fixed him with those sunshiny gold-brown eyes he found he didn't really mind so much.

"What time is it?" she released the handful of his shirt but her hand remained resting on his heartbeat.

"About noon, probably."

She cursed, "I left my cows out last night."

"How irresponsible." They shared a smile as sunny as the room.

He pulled hairpins from his shirt pocket and held them between his lips as he casually smoothed the tousled layers back then clipped them down. She stretched, and wiggled her toes and sat cross-legged on the sofa behind him toying with a stray curl that he missed. As if they'd used up their quota of words last night the silence stretched in front of them, however comfortably.

She leaned her chin against the top of his head and draped her arms loosely around his neck, "I suppose I should go and get started."

"I have to head to the inn." The feeling of her warmth on the back of his collar sent thrills through every nerve ending and he had to fight with the pleasurable shudder that followed. Instead he distracted himself with unbuttoning the wrinkled shirt.

"My, aren't you the forward one!" her hands drew back and she sat rigidly with her gaze to the doorway, rosy cheeked.

He laughed and his hands stopped their work halfway down, "Well if you will stay for the show! I haven't changed since my last shift, and I prefer not to go back into work looking like I-"

"Fell asleep on the floor with a stranger?" She grinned.

He stood, his unbuttoning resumed, "You're hardly a stranger."

"Then a strange person."

"I'll give you that. Although, I usually use 'weird girl.'"

He could hear the creak from the couch when she stood on it, and turned to check her expression. Thanks to the added height of the furniture she was taller than him and easily re-wrapped his neck in her arms, her lips came down fast towards him but the kiss was so soft and fervent that he would remember it for years to come. Like the feathery brush of butterfly wings. He longed to draw it out, but was rooted to the spot; fingers poised on buttonhole.

She pulled away, her breath puffing once sweetly on his face, and hopped down from the sofa, "See you later."

When he pulled himself out of the grips of shocked silence she was already half out the door. "No more midnight fishing," was possibly the lamest thing he could have chosen to say.

**The Fifth Instance in the season of loneliness**

Late autumn was upon her again too quickly, dragging her tooth and nail into solemnity when the sun goes to sleep and the chill falls. The evening found her flat on her bed staring at the ceiling and listening to the clock-song of the seconds ticking away. She groaned to see that it was only just past nine.

Pulling a towel off the top of a freshly laundered pile she managed to convince herself that the springs might be nice and wandered out the door. The farm was silent, the sky clear and twinkling little shoots of starlight from between golden leaves. From the hill she could see the fair glow of town guarding off the night. The inn was probably at its most profitable during this season. Perhaps she'd talk herself into a drink tomorrow instead of sulking around. Chase might cook for her again. Her imagination must have taken this thought and ran with it, since his voice was echoing in her ears. It was louder than the familiar sounds of her farm. It was right behind her.

Her arm was caught and the towel dropped from it. Chase, better than her imagination, picked it up and gave it back to her covered in broken leaves.

"Sorry, just you were in a world of your own." He was breathing heavily as if he'd run a marathon.

"W-whu-what are you doing here?"

"I-I-I came to see you, of course." He mocked her stutter with smiling eyes and a little chuckle, "but you were already half way to the falls so I ran to catch up."

"It's late, aren't you working?"

His face dropped, "don't you even know what day it is?" She blinked, thinking of her calendar, when it suddenly hit her and she felt her ears heat up first.

"My...birthday."

"Wow, you really are a scatterbrain." He frowned and crossed his arms.

She sulked visibly; not even a call from her sister. What a horrible season to be born in.

"It doesn't matter." He grabbed her hand, fingers working their way between hers until they were perfectly intertwined, and towed her back in the direction of the house.

"What are we doing?" her heart was racing and he winked. They passed her house in the direction of the other farms. "please tell me it's not a surprise party." He laughed rather musically.

"I'll remember that for the next time I want to torture you, but no. It's not. I want you to myself tonight." She watched him shyly as they strolled. Since her impulsive kiss they hadn't spent much more time together. They'd met in the square a couple of times and spoke briefly, but it was as though neither knew how to proceed. She worried she'd broken something precious: something he couldn't forgive her for breaking.

"Are you listening?" His lilac eyes were full of annoyance, "get it together Angela, you can't be giving in to old age just yet. You're only-"

"Twenty-three." She finished for him.

"Huh." His hand squeezed hers gently. "You're a little older than I am."

They reached Brownie Farm and the tree on the hill before long. The stars were even brighter from here, and in the horizon the ocean roared peacefully. Chase had arranged blankets and a plain brown paper bag rested neatly on top. He sat down first and began to sift through it. She watched him and imagined that the feeling blossoming in her chest was a bit like a seed sprouting from the soil: born for the first time, but sorry to forget the sweetness of sleeping in that cool pain free earth, hurting itself desperately as it broke the hard shell of that previous life and reached for the sunshine. The vision became blurry as there were hot heavy tears spilling over the edges of her open eyes.

He froze when he saw it, "You're...crying because you're happy right?" He was at her side again, hands hovering uncertainly. "Shit. Angela, tell me you're happy."

She couldn't trust her voice but she nodded and wiped the feeling on her sleeve.

**In the Same Instance She confessed**

And it was a well aimed shot that sent him reeling.

"So you're crying because you love me? Call me crazy but that doesn't help me receive the information so well." He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to gather her up, he wanted to run away so fast that no one could catch him and never look back. So for the second pivotal moment he just stood there dumbstruck. How can she look the most feeble he's ever seen and still stand on this hill and say something so brave? "What's the catch?" Because of course there had to be one.

Her expression went from tearstained and sincere to angry and fast closing in. Another well-aimed shot was a punch to his shoulder, which actually smarted quite a lot and sent him a step back. She rushed in for another but he seized her up tight in his arms and his feet slipped between blanket and still somewhat dewy grass sending them backwards together. They landed solidly in a tangle, feet skyward and breath lost, he a cradle to her fragility.

A leftover tear transferred from her cheek to his shirt-front, "Chase, you dummy." She burrowed her face in his chest.

He was gasping, relishing in the reassurance that he could hold her unyielding and she couldn't get away. Couldn't be taken away. If he just carried on then couldn't he place claim on her? She was brushing her lips up his neck and his jaw, the same fluttery tentative kisses. "You dummy, you dummy. There is no catch. Just say it too."

And he found that he could quite easily. Her kisses found his mouth and his tongue found hers. Their hands had suddenly found all the confidence they had been searching for and rolled over one another. His fingers crept beneath her top and she shivered. He felt it run through her and into him and he sighed into their kiss. It was perfect, it was rapture; she was his.

"It's cold. Really cold. Your fingers are like ice." she parted from him to breathe. He reached for the secondary blanket he'd brought for star-watching, thankful for his forward thinking despite never being _that _forward thinking. He wrapped them both, careful to keep her in his lap, and touching his lips to her temple as he did. The change in position made the passion cease for a moment but he was coiled like a spring to carry on. Now that he had tasted her he wanted more and more. He wanted to fall into the night with her and melt with love, soft and satisfied and together.

"Chase, you're trembling." her fingers traced his face.

"I'm excited." He kissed her smile.

"Say it again," she laughed and he was content just to hold her for now.

"Maybe tomorrow."

**THE END**

_Thanks for reading. I love reviews._


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